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The Character and Influence of Abolitionism. 



f^^^^" A SEKMON 



PREACHED IN THE 



tJJL 

^>3 



iixsi |ral)^t|ria]i CfjiUTi; §ro0li[p, 



SABBATH EVENING, DECEMBER 9th, 1860. 
BY 

Rev. henry J. VAN DYKE, Pastor. 



NEW KrRK: 
D. APPLETON Ai^D COMPANY, 

.443 & 445 BROADWAY. 
1860. 



SERMON. 



1 TIMOTHY VI. 1-5. 

1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of 
all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 

2 And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they 
are brethren; but rather do them service, because tliey are faithful and beloved, par- 
takers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. 

r-,-. 3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome word?, even tha 
words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to goJiiness ; 

4. He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, 
whereof Cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 

6. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, suppos- 
ing that gain is godUness : from such withdraw thyself. 

I propose to discuss the cliaracter and influence of Abolition- 
ism. V/ith this view, I have selected a text from the Bible, 
and purpose to adhere to the letter and spirit of its teaching. 
We acknowledge, in this place, but one standard of morals— but 
one authoritative and infallible rule of faith and practice ; for 
we are Christians hero ; not blind devotees, to bow down to the 
dictation of any man or church ; not heathen philosophers, to 
grope our way by the feeble glimmerings of the light of nature ; 
not modern inBdels, to appeal from the written law of^ God to 
the corrupt and fickle tribunal of reason and humanity ; but 
Christians, on whose banner is inscribed this sublime chal- 
lenge :— " To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not 
according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." 
Let me direct your special attention to the language of our 
text. There is no dispute among commentators, there is no 
room for dispute, as to the meaning of the expression, '^servants 
under the yoke." Even Mr. Barnes, who is himself a distm- 



guished Abolitionist, and has done more, perhaps, than any- 
other man in this country to propagate Abolition doctrines, 
admits, that "the addition of the phrase 'under the yoke/ 
shows undoubtedly that it {i. e., the original word, doidos) is to 
be understood here of slavery." * Let me quote another testi- 

* Mr. Barnes adopts a most extraordinary method to avoid the force of the precept 
which commands slaves who have believing masters to " do them service, bect^use they 
are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." He>ays : "The passage before us 
only proves that Paul considered that a man who was a slaveholder might be con- 
verted and be spoken of as a believer or a Christian. Many have been converted in 
similar circumstances, as many have been in the practice of all other kinds of iniquity. 
What was their duty after their conversion, was another question ; and what was the 
duty of their servants or slaves was another question still." 

Ao-ain he says: " The passage does not teach that a man can be a Christian, and 
contimte to hold others in bondage. It docs not teach that he ought to be considered 
as maintaining a good standing in the church if he continues to be a slaveholder. The 
fact that a man might be converted who was a slaveholder, no more proves that it 
would be right and desirable that he should continue that relation, than the fact that 
Saul of Tarsus became a Christian when engaged in persecution proves that it would 
have been right for him to continue in that business, or that the conversion of the 
Ephesians, who used ' curious arts,' proved that it would have been proper for them 
to continue in that employment. Men who are doing wrong, are converted in order 
to turn them from that course of life, not to justify them in it." Now, in view of 
these extracts, I have three remarks to make, (1.) They illustrate the power of 
fanaticism to imbitter the heart. Mr. Barnes well knew when he wrote these pas- 
sages, that multitudes of the noblest and holiest men of this land have been, and are, 
slaveholders — that many of the founders of our government, with Washington at 
their head, were slaveholders — that there are now in our Southern States thousands 
of Christian masters who give every Scriptural evidence of piety ; and yet in a way 
that is all the more severe, because of its quiet and seemingly gentle manner, he 
teaches that slaveholding is a crime on a par with the imposture of the Ephesian sor- 
cerers, with the slaughter of Saul the persecutor, a crime so obvious and enormous, 
that a convert from heathenism, without any inspired instruction upon the subject, at 
once, and instinctively, abandoned it. (2.) These extracts illustrate most pitiably 
how fanaticism warps the human intellect. The inspired Apostle commands tliat 
slaves who have believing masters (not masters who might become believers, as Mr. 
Barnes, with an amazing ingenuity, intimates, but believing masters — masters who had 
been converted) should do them service. And why? Because they are " faithful and 
beloved, partakers of the benefit." Because these masters had been converted, were 
beloved of God, were faithful in the discharge of their social duties, were partakers of 
the benefits of I)ivine grace — therefore, their slaves were to be the more obedient and 
respectful in their deportment. Now does not any one see that such a precept contem- 
plates the continuance of the i-elation between the Christian master and his slaves? 
Would Paul so stultify himself as to give commandments for the regulation of that re- 
lation, based upon the fact of the master's conversion, if he had expected and known 
this fact would instantly dissolve the relation itself? When he says, " Children, obey 
your parents in the Lord," does he not imply that the parental relation is to be cou- 
tiimed ? And so when, in the very same passage (Ephesians vi., 1-5), he says, " Ser- 
vants [douloi, slaves), be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh," 
does he not intimate, in the strongest form, that he expects tliat relation to continue ? 

(3.) These passages cast an imputation upon the integrity and candor of the great 
Apostle. I do not say Mr. Barnes meant such an imputation : I speak of the effect of 
such interpretations upon those who imbibe their spirit. Mr. B. puts slaveholding on 
a level with " all other kinds of iniquity," and indicates his estimate of its guilt by 
choosing persecution and sorcery to illustrate it. Very well, then ; if this be true, 
Paul might treat " all other kinds of iniquity " in the same way. To be consistent, 
he should have said : '• Sorcerers, use your curious arts and practise your impostures 
in a Christian way. ' Persecutors, when you hale men and women, and breathe out 



inony on this point from an eminent Scotch divine. I mean 
Dr. McKnight, whose Exposition of the Epistles is a standard 
work in Great Britain and in this country, and whose associa- 
tions must exempt him from all suspicion of pro-slavery preju- 
dices. He introduces his exposition of this chapter with the 
following explanation : — " Because the law of Moses (Exodus 
xxi. 2, allowed no Israelite to he made a slave for life without 
his own consent, the Judaizing teachers, to allure slaves to their 
party, taught that under the gospel, likewise, involuntary sla- 
very is unlawful. This doctrine the Apostle condemned here, 
as in his other Epistles, (1 Cor. vii. 20 ; Col. iii. 22 ; Eph. vi. 
5,) hy enjoining Christian slaves to honor and ohey their mas- 
ters, whether they were believers or unbelievers, and hy assuring 
Timothy that if any person taught otherwise, he ojjposed the 
wholesome precepts of Jesus Christ, and the doctrine of the 
gospel, which in all points is conformable to godliness or sound 
morality, and was puffed up with pride, without possessing any 
true knowledge either of the Jewish or Christian revelation." 
Our learned Scotch friend then goes on to expound the passage 
in the following paraphrase, which we commend to the prayerful 
attention of all whom it may concern : — 

" Let whatever Christian slaves are under the yoke of unbelievers pay 
their own masters all respect and obedience, that the cliaracter of God whom 
we worship may not be calumniated, and the doctrine of the gospel may not 
be evil spoken of, as tending to destroy the political rights of mankind. And 
those Christian slaves who have believing masters, let them not despise them, 
fancying that they are their equals because they are their brethren in Christ ; 
for, tliough all Christians are equal as to religious privileges, slaves are infe- 
rior to their masters in station. "Wherefore, let them serve their masters more 
diligently, because they who enjoy the benefit of their service are believers 
and beloved of God. These things teach, and exhort the brethren to practise 
them. If any one teach differently, by affirming that, under the gospel, 
slaves are not bound to serve their masters, but ought to be made free, and 

threatenings and slaughter against the Church, see to it that you strangle and beat 
and kill the saints in the most gentle and tender manner. Adulterers, give to your 
paramoiirs that which is just. Adulteresses, be obedient and submissive to those whom 
you serve. Men who go down from Jerusalem to Jericho, do not despise the thieves 
among whom you fall, for they ' are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit.'" 
Who does not see the gross impiety of attributing such teaching to the great Apostle ? 
But upon whom is this impiety chargeable ? Let the text of this discourse answer 
the question. Let those who teach that Paul held back the truth in regard to an 
enormous crime, answer to their own conscience, and to the distracted country which 
they have embroiled in fraternal strife, by their unscriptural dogmas. 



does not consent to tlie wholesome commandments which are our Lord Jesus 
Christ's, and to tiie doctrine of the gospel, which in all points is coiiformablo 
to true morality, Iio is puffed up witli pride, and knoweth nothing,' either of 
the Jewish or the Cliristian revelations, though he pretends to have great 
knowledge of both ; but is distempered in his mind about idle questions and 
debates of words, which afford no foundation for such a doctrine, but are the 
source of envy, contention, evil-speaking, unjust suspicion that the truth ia 
not sincerely maintained, keen disputings carried on contrary to conscience, 
by men wholly corrupted in their mituls and destitute of the true doctrine of 
the gospel, wlio reckon whatever produces most money is the best religion. 
From all such impious teachers withdraw thyself, and do not dispute with 
them." 

It would be easy for me to confirm the testimony of Dr. 
McKnight, by extracts from commentators of every name and 
nation. Suffer me to select a few as representatives of various 
relisrious denominations. 

Dr. Adam Clark, who is the standard of biblical criticism 
among our Methodist brethren, and perhaps the most learned 
man that large and zealous denomination has ever produced, 
gives us the following clear exposition : 

" The word douloi (servants) here means slaves converted to the Cliristian 
faith ; and the zvgon or yoke is the state of slavery, and by despotai^ masters, 
■\ve are to understand the heathen masters of those christianized slaves. Even 
these, in such circumstances, and under such domination, are commanded to 
treat their masters with all honor and respect, that the name of God by which 
they were called, and the doctrine of God, Christianity, which they had pro- 
fessed, might not be blasphemed — might not be evilly spoken of in conse- 
quence of their improper conduct. Civil rights are never abolished by ^au}' 
comunmications from God's Spirit. The civil state in which a man was be- 
fore his conversion, is not altered by that conversion ; nor does the grace of 
God absolve him from any claims which either the State or his neighbor may 
have on him. All these outward things continue unaltered. And they that 
have lelicting masters let them not despise them^ supposing themselves to bo 
thfir equals because they are their brethren in Christ: and grounding their 
opinion (m this, that in him there is neither male nor female, hand nor free: 
for, ahliough all are equal as to their spiritual privileges and state, yet thero 
still continues in tiie order of God's providence a great disparity in their sta- 
tion ; the master must ever be, in this sense, superior to the servant. But 
rather do them service — obey them the more cheerfully, because they are 
faithful and beloved— faithful to God's grace, leloved by him and his true 
followers. Partakers of the lencfit. This is generally understood as referring 
to the master's participation in the services of his slaves ; or it inay apply to 
the servants who are puriakcrs of many benefits from their Christian masters. 



others tl.ink tliat levcjit here refers to the grace of the gospel, tlie common 
salvation of believing lonsters and slaves." 

Dr. DoDDKiDGE, a great light among the English Congrega- 
tionalists, whose practical worts are in almost every Christian 
family, and whose precious hymns are smig wherever the name 
of Christ is known, gives us the following paraphrase : 

"Let therefore, as many servants as are under ///c yoU cflondage, ac- 
count their ovs-n masters worthy of all that civil honor and res, ect uhicli 
suits the station in which they respectively are : not taking occasion from 
their own religious knowledge and privilege to despise and rebel agamst them ; 
that the name and doctrine of God uhich they profess may not be blasphemed 
by their insolence and pride. And as for those servants who are so happy as 
to have believing masters, let them not i)resume on tl)at account to despise 
them because they are brethren, and with respect to sacred piivilejrcs equal 
in Christ their common Lord; but let them rather serve them wilii so nmcli 
the greater care and tenderness, because they arc taiihful and beloved, and 
partakers with them of the great and glorious benefit which the gospel brings 
to all its professors of whatever rank or station in life." 

I will add one more testimony from Olshausen, (as con- 
tinued by WiESiNGER,) a work which stands deservedly high 
among the most evangelical productions of modern Germany. 

" Vs. 1. ' As many under the yoke as are slaves,'— thus De Wette rightly 
renders'the words, UWng douloi as the predicate: for the distinction cannot 
be intended to be drawn between such slaves as are under the y»)ke and sucli 
as are not. A slave is as such under the yoke ; the expressk-n therefore does 
not imply harsh treatment; nor can it in itself mark the distinction between 
such slaves as serve heathen and such as serve Christian nuisn-rs. ^ The ex- 
pression is rather used by the apostle in opposition to the false ideas thai 
w^e heldon the siiiject of emartci^ation. AVhusoever is under the yoke- is to 
conduct himself according to this his position. They are U. count t!:eir mas- 
ters worthy of all honor, that tlie name of God and the doctrine Le not blas- 
phemed. One can easily conceive wliat danger there was lest the Ciiristian 
slave shoitld inwardly exalt himself above his heathen master, and look down 
upon him. To meet this danger, there is here required ot him not merely 
outward subjection, but inward esteem. 

''F«.2 treats of Christian slaves under Chri>tian masters. Such slaves .'.re 
not to see in the fact of their masters being their brethren in Ciiri>t, a reason 
for despising them, (for to place themselves on a level with those to wliom 
they owe subjection is already to despise them ;) but they are rather to find 
in this circumstance a motive to serve the more, i. e., to dn all the more what 
their position as slaves lays upon them." 

Dr. Gill, the well known Baptist commentator, gives us 
fMibstantially the same exposition. 



8 

The text, as thus expounded by the concurrent testimony of 
all the commentators, is a prophecy written for these days, and 
wonderfully applicable to our present circumstances. It gives 
us a lifelike picture of Abolitionism in its principles, its spirit, 
and its practice, and furnishes us plain instruction in regard to 
our duty in the premises. Before entering upon the discussion 
of the doctrine, let us define the terms employed. By Aboli- 
tionism, we mean the principles and measures of Abolitionists. 
And what is an Abolitionist .^ He is one who believes that 
slaveholding is sin, and ought therefore to be abolished. This 
is the fundamental, the characteristic, the essential principle 
of Abolitionism — that slaveholding is sin — that holding men in 
involuntary servitude is an infringement upon the rights of man, 
a heinous crime in the sight of Grod. A man may believe, on 
political or commercial grounds, that slavery is an undesirable 
system, and that slave labor is not the most profitable ; he may 
have various views as to the rights of slaveholders under the 
constitution of the country ; he may think this or that law 
upon the statute books of the Southern States is wrong ; but 
this does not constitute him an Abolitionist ; to be entitled to 
this name, he must believe tliat slaveholding is morally lurong. 
The alleged sinfulness of slaveholding, as it is the characteristic 
doctrine, so it is the strength of Abolitionism in all its ramified 
and various forms. It is by this doctrine that it lays hold upon 
the hearts and consciences of men, that it comes as a disturbing 
force into our ecclesiastical and civil institutions, and by exciting 
religious animosity, (which aU history proves to be the strongest 
of human passions,) imparts a peculiar intensity to every con- 
test into which it enters. And you will perceive it is just here 
that Abolitionism presents a proper subject for discussion in 
the pulpit: for it is one great purpose of the Bible, and there- 
fore one great duty of God's ministers in its exposition, to show 
what is sin and what is not. 

Those who hold the doctrine that slaveholding is sin, and 
ought therefore to be abolished, differ very much in the extent 
to which they reduce their theory to practice. In some this 
faith is almost without works. They content themselves with 
only voting in such a way as in their judgment will best pro-. 



9 

mote the ultimate trmmph of tlieir views. Others stand off 
at what they suppose a safe distance, as Shimei did when he 
stood on an opposite hill to curse King David, and rebuke the 
sin, and denounce Divine judgments upon the sinner. Others, 
more practical, if not more prudent, go into the very midst of 
the alleged wickedness, and teach " servants under the yoke " 
that they ought not to count their own masters worthy of all 
honor — that liberty is their inalienable right — which they 
should maintain, if necessary, even by the shedding of blood. 
Now, it is not for me to decide who, of all these, are the truest 
to their own principles. It is not for me to decide whether 
the man who preaches this doctrine in brave words, amid ap- 
plauding multitudes in the city of Brooklyn, or the one who, 
in the stillness of the night, and in the face of the law's terrors, 
goes to practise the preaching at Harper's Ferry, is the most 
consistent Abolitionist, and the most heroic man. It is not 
for me to decide which is the most important part of a tree ; 
and if the tree be poisonous, which is the most injurious, the 
root, or the branches, or the fruit. * But I am here to-night, in 
God's name, and by His help, to show that this tree of Aboli- 
tionism is evil, and only evil — root and branch, flower, and leaf, 
and fruit ; that it springs from, and is nourished by, an utter 
rejection of the Scriptures ; that it produces no real benefit to 
the enslaved, and is the fruitful source of division and strife, 
and infidelity, in both Church and State. I have four distinct 
propositions on the subject to maintain — four theses to nail up 
over this pulpit, and defend with the " word of God, which is 
the sword of the Spirit." 

I. — Abolitionism has no foundation in the Scriptures. 

II. — Its principles have been promulgated chiefly by misre 
presentation and abuse. 

III. — It leads in multitudes of cases, and by a logical pro- 
cess, to utter infidelity. 

IV. — It is the chief cause of the strife that agitates, and 
the danger that threatens, our country. 



10 



I. — ABOLITIONISM HAS NO FOUNDATION IN SCRIPTURE. 

PaFsing I)y the records of the patriarchal age, and waiving 
the question as to those servants in Abraham's family who, in 
the simple, hut expressive language of Scripture, "were 
bought with his money," let us come at once to the tribunal of 
that law which God promulgated amid the solemnities of Sinai. 
What said the law and the testimony to that peculiar people 
over whom God ruled, and for whose institutions He has assum- 
ed the responsibility ? The answer is in the twenty-fifth chap- 
ter of Leviticus, in these words : — 

"And if tliy brother tliat dwoHetli by tbce be "waxcn poor, and be sold 
unto tlico, tlioii sbalt not conip(.l bim to serve as a bond-servant ; but as a 
bired servant and a sojourner lie si, all be wiili tbee, and shall serve thee unto 
tlie year of jubilee, and then shall be depart from tbee, both be and bis chil- 
dren with liini." 

So far, you will observe, the law refers to the children of 
Israel, who by reason of poverty were reduced to servitude. It 
was their right to be free at the year of jubilee, unless they 
chose to remain in perpetual bondage ; for which case provision 
is made in other and distinct enactments.* But not so with 
slaves of foreign birth. There was no year of jubilee provided 
for them.f For what says the law ? Eead the forty-fourth 
to forty-sixth verses of the chapter. 

'• 15()tb thy bondmen and thy bondmaids ■which tbon sbalt have shall bo 
of the heathen that are round about you. Of them shall yo buy bondmea 

* Exndiis xxi. .5, 6 : " And if the servant {i. e., the Hebrew sei-vant, as the context 
shows) shall plainly s.ny, I love iny niiister, my wife, and my children; I will not go 
out free; then his master shall hring him unto the judges; he shall also hrhig him to 
the doer or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with aa 

awl : AND HK SHAI-L SKKVK HIM FOREVliU." 

tThe Abolitionists have blown this jubilee trumpet with a zeal worthy of a hetter 
cause. They have insisted that under the Levitical economy slaves c;;uld only be held 
for ff/y j/(ars. Kow, inasmuch as the average of human life is somewhere between 
thirty and forty years, feme, at least, of these slaves, according to the interpretation 
of the Abolitionists themselves, must have ended their days in bondage. But the fact 
is. as any one may see by a candid leading of the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, 
the year of jubilee had no referer.ce lo bondmen of foreign birth, but only to Hebrew 
landowners who were "waxen poor and fallen in decay." "1 hey might purchase 
boiidnien of the heathen nations that were round about them, or of those strangers 
that so'onrr.cd among them, and might claim a dominion over them, and entail them 
upon thulr l\miiYies, »s an luhisntixucc, for ike year of jubilee should ffive them no dia- 
cliarffe." — Matthkw Henky. 



11 

and liondinnids. !^'nl•covel•, of tlio cliildren of tlie strangers tliat do sojonrn 
ninopfr yoi! — of lluin sliiill jo liiy and of tlieir families tliat are ^vitll you, 
■wiiicli they beget in your land; and they shall he your jiosseasion. And yo 
shall take them as an inheritance for yonr children after you, to inherit them 
for a possession ; they shall be your bondmen forever. 

There it is, plainly written in the Divine lav/. No legis- 
lative enactment, no statute framed by legal skill, was ever 
more explicit and incapable of perversion. When the Aboli- 
tionist tells me that slaveholding is sin, in the simplicity of my 
faith in the Holy Scriptures, I point him to this sacred re- 
cord, and tell him, in all candor, as my text does, that his 
teaching blasphemes the name of God and His doctrine. When 
he begins to dcte about queslions and strifes of words, appeal- 
ing to the Decharaticn of Independence, and asserting that the 
idea of property in men is an enormity and a crime, I still 
hold him to the recoid, saying, " Ye shall take them as an in- 
heritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a pos- 
session." When he waxes warm, as he always does if his 
opponent quote Scripture, (which is the great test to try the 
spirits whether they be God — the very spear of Ithuriel to re- 
veal their true character) — when he gets angry, and begins to 
pour out his evil surmisings and abuse upon slaveholders, I 
obey tbe precept which says, "from such withdraw thyself," 
comforting myself with this thought : that the wisdom of God 
is wiser than men, and the kindness of God kinder than men. 
Philcsophers may reason, and reformers may rave till dooms- 
day ; they never can convince me that God, in the Levitical 
law, or in any other law, sanctioned sin ; and as I know, from 
the plain paesage I have quoted, and many more like it, that 
He (^/(i sanction slaveholding among His ancient people, I know, 
also, by the logic of that faith which believes the Bible to be 
His word, that slaveholding is not sin. 

Abolitionists are accustomed to answer this appeal to the 
Levitical law, by asserting that the Old Testament gives the 
same sanction to polygamy that it does to slaveholding ; and I 
am sorry to observe that ministers of the gospel make tliis broad 
assertion in the pulpit, without CDndescending to give us the 
proof-texts. Suppose the Old Testament does sanction polyg- 
amy, what then ? What is the purpose of the Abolitionist in 



12 

making this assertion ? Docs he mean to cast contempt upon 
the Levitical law, by proving that it sanctions what all Chris- 
tians under the gospel admit to be wrong ? Or does he mean 
to maintain that both slaveholding and polygamy are relations 
on which the Divine sanction rests ? If it can be proved that 
the law of God, as promulgated by Moses, did sanction 
polygamy, I am prepared at once to say that polygamy is in 
itself no sin ; and if there has been no explicit repeal of that 
sanction, that it is still right to have a plurality of wives. I 
know of nothing as sin except that which transgresses God's 
law. But the fact is, this attempt to offset slaveholding with 
polygamy is mere assertion. We call for the proof. Point us 
in the divine law which came by Moses, a passage in reference 
to a plurality of wives, clear and explicit, like that we have 
quoted in reference to the purchase of bondmen from the 
heathen. It cannot be done. It is true some of the patriarchs 
had more wives than one ; and this fact is recorded. And so 
David committed murder and adultery ; and that fact is re- 
corded. But did God sanction these sins for which the sweet 
singer poured out his broken heart in the fifty-first Psalm, as 
He did sanction slaveholding, by inserting in His law express 
directions as to how they were to be committed ? There can- 
not be found anywhere in the Levitical law, either a permission 
that a man may have two wives, or any direction as to how he 
shall obtain them. The nearest approach to such a precept is 
found in Deut. xxi. 15, where it says, " if a man have two 
wives," he shall do thus and so with with the children. If a 
man have two wives ! Is tliat the same thing as to say a man 
may have two wives ? When the law says, " if a man smite 
his servant till he die," is that the same thing as to sanction 
the beating of a slave to death ? 

The most that has ever been claimed for polygamy under the 
Levitical Law is a hare toleration. Michaelis, who is the great 
authority en that side of the question, says : ''It does not ap- 
pear that Moses permitted polygamy willingly, or as a matter of 
indifi'erence, in either a moral or political view, but, as Christ 
expresses it, merely on account of the hardness of their hearts. 
In other words, he did not ajjprove, but found it advisable to 



13 

tolerate it as a point of civil expediency." — Commentaries on 
the Laws of Moses, vol. 2, p. 8. 

Now, even if we admit that for expediency sake the in- 
spired lawgiver tolerated polygamy, it must be evident to every 
candid reader, that slaveholding holds a very different position 
under the divine law. Slaveholding is there not merely by a 
silence which gives consent, but it is there as a matter of ex- 
press enactment. It was anticipated by the law. It is not 
true, as is so often asserted, that Moses found slavery among 
the Israelites. At the time when he came to set up their na- 
tionality under the most perfect theocracy the world ever saw, 
they had themselves been slaves for generations. When they 
went out of Egypt, they had no social or commercial ties to bind 
them to a relation which the cruelty of their heathen masters 
had so long used as an instrument of oppression. There was 
not one slave in all that mighty host who gathered around 
Mount Sinai, to receive the law by which their future institu- 
tions were to be moulded. 

Eegarding Moses (as Michaelis and other rationalistic com- 
mentators do) merely in the light of a human lawgiver, how 
easy would it have been for him, by the insertion of one positive 
prohibition into his code, or even by the preaching of one 
abolition sermon, to put the stigna of his disapprobation fl)r- 
ever upon slaveholding ! How easy for him to keep silence, as 
it is alleged he did, in reference to polygamy, and thus leave 
slaveholding on the footing of an evil tolerated for expediency 
sake ! Or to speak more like a Christian minister, how easy it 
would have been for God, if he regards slaveholding as sinful, 
in those days when his chosen people trembled before Sinai, un- 
der the utterance of that law which was to shape their charac- 
ter and destiny as a nation, to write the doctrine of Abolition- 
ism in His holy law, and grave it indelibly upon the inspired 
records of the world. The fact that he uttered no such doc- 
trine, but, on the contrary, instructed the chosen seed to pur- 
chase, and Jiold, and bequeath their bondmen to their posterity, 
shuts every man up to 'the alternative, either to reject Abo- 
litionism, or reject Moses as an inspired lawgiver. 

It must be admitted that the Jewish Rabbis, who taught 



14 

for commandments the doctrines of men, construed the law into 
a sanction of polygamy. But Christ, the true expounder, showed 
them how their traditions made void the law. Kead his de- 
liverance on this suhject in Matt. xix. 3-9 ; Mark x. 11 ; 
Luke xvi. 18. He admits that Moses suffered a man to marry 
a second wife, provided he had previously divorced the first ; 
but declares that even this permission was because of the hard- 
ness of their hearts ; and then referring them to the original 
and model marriage, by which twain were made one flesh, he 
promulgates that great divine law, which, however it is tram- 
pled on now by the legislatures of nominally Christian states, 
was strictly observed in the Apostolic Church, so that a Chris- 
tian man as well as a Christian minister, was " the husband of 
one wife." 

Admitting, for the sake of the argument, that the Levitical 
law gives no more sanction to slaveholding than it did to 
polygamy, we ask the advocates of Abolitionism if Christ ever 
rebuked the prevailing practice in regard to the one, as he did 
in reference to the other ^ Leaving Moses and the Prophets, 
let us turn now to Jesus and His Apostles. 

There are men, even among professing Christians, and not a 
few ministers of the gospel, who answer the argument from the 
Old Testament Scriptures, by a simple denial of their authority. 
They do not tell us how God could ever or anywhere countenance 
that which is morally wrong, but they content themselves with 
saying that the Levitical law is no rule of action for us ; and 
they appeal from its decisions to what they consider the higher 
tribunal of the gospel.* Let us, therefore, join issue with them 
befoi-e the bar of the New Testament Scriptures. Here there is 
no lack of witnesses in the case. It is a historic truth, acknowl- 
edged on all hands, that at the advent of Jesus Christ slavery 
existed all over the civilized world, and was intimately interwoven 
with its social and civil institutions. In Judea, in Asia Minor, 
in Greece, in all the countries where the Saviour or his Apostles 

» Some years since, Dr. Wayland publicly asserted that the New Testament is the 
only and sufficient rule of faith for Chrisiums. The editors of the New York Observer 
challenged' this statement; and, as I have been informed, the late Dr. James Alex- 
ander offered to debate the question in the columns of that journal. Dr. Wayland pru- 
dently declined the discussion, promising, however, that he would, at a convenient 
season, explain and defend his views. The promised explanation has not yet appeared. 



15 

preached the gospel, slaveholding was just as common as it is to- 
day in South Carolina. It is not alleged by any one, or, at least, 
by any one having any pretensions to scholarship or candor, that 
the Roman laws regulating slavery were even as mild as the very 
worst statutes which have been passed upon the subject in modern 
times. It will not be denied by any honest and well-informed 
man, that modern civilization and the restraining influences of 
the gospel, have shed ameliorating influences upon the relation 
between master and slave, which were utterly unknown at the 
advent of Christianity. And how did Jesus and his Apostles 
treat this subject ? Masters and slaves met them at every step 
in their missionary work, and were present in every audience to 
which they preached. The Roman law, which gave the full 
power of life and death into the master's hand, was ftimiliar to 
them ; and all the evils connected with the system surrounded 
them every day, as obviously as the light of heaven. And yet, 
it is a remarkable fiict, which the Abolitionist does not, because 
he cannot deny, that the New Testament is utterly silent in re- 
gard to the alleged sinfulness of slaveholding. In all the in- 
structions of the Saviour ; in all the reported sermons of the in- 
spired Apostles; in all the epistles they were moved by the 
Holy Spirit to write, for the instruction of coming generations — 
there is not one distinct and explicit denunciation of slavehold- 
ing, nor one precept requiring the master to emancipate his slaves. 
Every acknowledged sin is openly and repeatedly condemned, and 
in unmeasured terms. Drunkenness and adultery, theft and 
murder — all the moral wrongs which ever have been known to 
afflict society, are forbidden by name ; and yet, according to the 
teaching of Abolitionism, this greatest of all sins — this sum of all 
villanies — is never spoken of except in respectful terms. How 
can this be accounted for ? 

Let Dr. Wayland, whose work on moral science is taught in 
many of our schools, answer this question ; and. let parents 
whose children are studying that book, diligently consider his 
answer. I quote from Wayland's Moral Science, page 213 : — 

" The gospel was designed not for one nice or for one time, but for all 
races and for all times. It looked not to the abolition of slavery for that age 
alone, but for its universal abolition. Ilence, the important object of its Au- 



16 

thor was to gain for it a lodgment in (ivery part of tlie known world, so that, 
by its universal diffusion among all classes of society, it might, quietly and 
peacefully, modify and subdue the evil passions of men. In this manner alone 
could its object — a universal moral revolution — have been accomplished. For 
if it had forbidden the evil, instead of subverting the principle ; if it had pro- 
claimed the unlawfulness of slavery, and tauglit slaves to resist the oppression 
of tlieir masters, it would instantly have' arrayed the two parties in deadly 
hostility throughout the civilized world ; its announcement would have been 
the signal of servile war, and the very name of the Christian religion would 
have been forgotten amidst the agitation of universal bloodshed. The fact, 
under these circumstances, that the gospel does notforlicl slavery^ atfords no 
reason to suppose that it does not mean to prohibit it." 

"We pause not now to comment upon the admitted fact that 
the gospel does not forbid slavery^ and that Jesus Christ and 
his Apostles pursued a course entirely different from that adopt- 
ed by the Abolitionists, including the learned author himself ; 
nor to inquire whether the teaching of Abolitionism is not as 
likely to produce strife and bloodshed in these days as in the 
first ages of ^.the Church. What we now call attention to, and 
protest against, is the imputation here cast upon Christ and 
His Apostles. Do you believe the Saviour sought to insinuate 
His religion into the earth by concealing its real design, and 
preserving a profound silence in regard to one of the very worst 
sins it came to destroy ? Do you believe that when he healed 
the centurion's servant, (whom every honest commentator ad- 
mits to have been a slave,*) and pronounced that precious 
eulogy upon the master, " I have not seen so great faith in 
Israel " — do you believe that Jesus suffered that man to live on 
in sin because he deprecated the consequences of preaching 
Abolitionism ? When Paul stood upon Mars' Hill, surrounded 
by ten thousand times as many slaveholders as there were idols 
in the city, do you believe he kept back any part of the require- 
ments of the gospel because he was afraid of a tumult among 
the people ? We ask these Abolition philosophers whether, as 

* We know the centurion's servant was a dave, not only from the position and na- 
tionality of the master, but from the very name given in the original to the servant. 
" Doulos " is derived from the verb deo, to bind, and always signifies a bo/idman. 

Dr. Robinson, whose Lexicon is the great standard upon such questions, says : 
" The doulos was never a hired servant, the latter being called by another name — 
jnislhios, or misikoios:' This testimony is confirmed by every authority, ancient and 
modern, European and American, except a little clique of Abolitionists, who, to sus- 
tain their dogm.a, would not only wrest the Scriptures, but overturn the very founda- 
tions of the Greek lanoruaire. 



17 

a matter of fact, idolatry, and the vices connected with it, were 
not even more intimately interwoven with the social and civil 
life of the Koman empire than slavery was ? Did the Apostles 
abstain from preaching against idolatry ? Nay, who does not 
know that by denouncing this sin they brought down upon 
themselves the whole power of the Eoman empire ? Nero 
covered the Christian martyrs with pitch, and lighted up the 
city with theii- burning bodies, just because they would not 
withhold or compromise the truth in regard to the worship of 
idols. In the light of that fierce persecution, it is a profane 
trifling for Dr. Wayland, or any other man, to tell us that Jesus 
or Paul held back their honest opinions of slavery in order to 
avoid " a servile war, in which the very name of the Christian 
religion would have been forgotten." The name of the Chris- 
tian rehgion is not so easily forgotten ; nor are God's great pur- 
poses of redemption capable of being defeated by an honest 
declaration of His truth everywhere and at all times. And yet 
this philosophy, so dishonoring to Christ and His Apostles, is 
moulding the character of our young men and women. It 
comes into our schools, and mingles with the very life-blood of 
future generations the sentiment that Christ and his Apostles 
held back the truth, and suffered sin to go unrebuked to avoid 
the wrath of man. And all this to maintain, at all hazards, 
and in the face of the Saviour's example to the contrary, the 
unscriptural dogma that slaveholding is sin. 

But it must be observed, in this connection, that the Apos- 
tles went much further than to abstain from preaching against 
slaveholding. They admitted slaveliolders to the communion of 
the church. In our text, masters are acknowledged as " breth- 
ren, faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." If the 
New Testament is to be received as a faithful history, no man 
was ever rejected by the Apostolic Church upon the ground that 
he owned slaves. If he abused his power as a master, if he 
availed himself of the authority conferred by the Eoman law to 
commit adultery, or murder, or cruelty, he was rejected for 
these crimes, just as he would be rejected now for similar crimes 
from any Christian Church in our Southern States.* 

* One of the grossest sins of AbolitioDism, and one chief root of the bitterness that 

2 



18 

If parents aLused or neglected their children, they were cen- 
sured, not for having children, but for not treating them proper- 
ly. And so with the slaveholder. It was not the owning of 
slaves, but the manner in which he fulfilled the duties of his 
station, that made him a subject for church discipline. The 
mere fact that he was a slaveholder no more subjected him to 
censure, than the mere fact that he was a father or a husband. 
It is, obviously, upon the recognized lawfulness of the relation, 
that all the precepts regulating the reciprocal duties of that re- 
lation are based.* 

These precepts are scattered all through the inspired epis- 
tles. There is not one command or exhortation to emancipate 
the slave. The Apostle well knew that for the present emanci- 
pation would be no real blessing to him. But the master is 
exhorted to be kind and considerate, and the slave to be obe- 
dient, that so they might preserve the unity of that Church in 
which there is no distinction between Greek or Jew, male or 
female, bond or free. 

It is often said that if the Bible does sanction slaveholding, 
it does not sanction American slavery ; that it is not against 
slaveholding abstractly that the Abolitionist protests, but 
against the system of American slavery taken as a whole. 

To this I answer, the Bible does not sanction Arnerican 
marriage. The system, taken as a whole, is full of evil and 

has sprung up between the North and the South, is its persistent slander on this sub- 
ject. For example, some years ago it was asserted, and reiterated by Abolition jour- 
nals and lecturers, that a minister at the South, without injury to his character, had 
tied up his slave on Sabbath morning, and, having iuihcted a cruel punishment, left 
him suspended, while he went to church to preach and administer the Lord's supper, 
and then returned to inflict additional stripes upon his lacerated victim. This is but 
a specimen. In regard to crimes against chastity, the Southern churches have been 
shamefully slandered. What wonder that Christian mothers, and even ministers o? 
the gospel, are roused to a revolutionary indignation by such abuse? 

* It is often said that this argument from the precepts of the apostles proves too 
much ; that it makes the Bible sanction despotism, even the despotism of Nero. In 
reply to this we quote a few sentences from Dr. Hodge's celebrated Essay on Slavery : 
" The argument for the lawfulness of slaveholding is not founded on the mere in- 
junction, ' slaves obey your masters,' analogous to the command, ' let every soul be 
subject to the higher powers,' but on the fact that the apostles did not condemn 
slavery; that they did not require emancipation ; and that they recognized slaveholders 
as Cliristian brethren. To make the objectitm of any force, it must be shown that Paul 
not only enjoined obedience to a despotic monarch, but that he reeognized Nero as a 
Christian. When this is done, then, we shall admit that our argument is fairly met, 
and that it is just as true that he sanctioned the conduct of Nero as that he acknowl- 
edged the lawfuhiess of slavery." 



19 

iniquity. The laws of the several States in regard to it, are, 
many of them, abominable ; and the fruits that grow out 
of it are heart-sickening and dreadful. Husbands beat and 
poison their wives. Multitudes of parents suffer their children 
to grow up in filth and ignorance ; and the details of the di- 
vorce cases with which our northern newspapers have been reek- 
ing for months past, are enough to poison the fountains of vir- 
tue in every family where they are read. But is any honest man 
and woman, who live together according to God's ordinance, to 
be charged with the iniquity of the statute-book of Indiana, or 
the misery and crime of the Five Points ? Neither is any hon- 
est slaveholder in Virginia to be charged with all the alleged or 
real evils connected with the system of slavery. And how will 
you correct the evils connected with marriage ? By railino- at 
the whole system as an iniquity ? By joining the advocates of 
Woman's Rights, in their crusade against the divine law upon 
the subject ? By denouncing the relation itself as sinful ? 
No ! You acknowledge the relation as lawful, and seek to 
throw around it, and into the hearts of those who sustain it, 
the sanctifymg influences of the blessed gospel. Just so. Chris- 
tian men and ministers are striving to remove the evils con- 
nected with slavery in our Southern States. The gospel does 
not sanction either the syste^n of American marriage or the sijs- 
tem of American slavery, (if by system be meant every ihiug 
connected with the practical workings of the two relations ;) 
but then it did sanction both marriage and slaveholding under 
a system of laws, and in a condition of public morals, worse than 
now exist in either New York or Charleston. The Apostles did 
not endorse wicked laws in i-egard to slavery : they gave both 
master and slave the law of Christ. They did not sanction li- 
centiousness or cruelty in any social relation ; but sought to 
throw over all the sweet and sanctifying influences of the truth 
as it is in Jesus. 

Oh, if ministers of the gospel in this land and age had but 
followed Paul as he followed Christ, and, instead of hurling 
anathemas and exciting wrath against slaveholders, had sought 
only to bring both master and slave to the fountain of Emanuel's 
blood ; if the agencies of the blessed gospel had only been suffered 



20 

to work their way quietly, as the h'ght and dew of the morning, 
into the structure of society, hoth North and South — how differ- 
ent would have been the position of our country this day before 
Grod ! How different would have been the privileges enjoyed by 
the poor black man's soul, which, in this bitter contest, has been 
too much neglected and despised ! Then there would have been 
no need to have converted our churches into military barracks for 
collecting fire-arms to carry on war upon a distant frontier. No 
need for a sovereign State to execute the fearful penalty of the 
law upon the invader, for doing no more than honestly to carry 
out the teaching of Abolition preachers, who bind heavy burdens, 
and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, while 
they touch them not with one of their fingers. No need for the 
widow and the orphan to weep in anguish of heart over those cold 
graves, for whose dishonor and desolation God will hold the real 
authors responsible. No occasion or pretext for slaveholding 
States to pass such stringent laws for the punishment of the se- 
cret incendiary and the prevention of servile war. 

I shall not attempt to show what will be the condition of the 
African race in this country when the gospel shall have brought 
all classes under its complete dominion. What civil and social 
relations men will sustain in the times of millennial glory, I do 
not know. I cordially incline to the current opinion of our 
church, that slavery is permitted and regulated by the Divine 
law, Tinder both the Jewish and Christian dispensations, not as 
the final destiny of the enslaved, but as an important and neces- 
sary process in their transition from heathenism to Christianity — 
a wheel in the great machinery of Providence, 'by which the final 
redemption is to be accomplished. However this may be, one 
thing I know, and every Abolitionist might know, if he would, 
that there are Christian families at the South in which a patri- 
archal fidelity and aflection subsist between the bond and the 
free, and where slaves are better fed and clothed and instructed, 
and have a better opportunity for salvation, than the majority of 
laboring people in the city of New York. If the tongue of Abo- 
litionism had only kept silence these twenty years past, the num- 
ber of such families would be tenfold as great. Fanaticism at 
the North is one chief stumbling-block in the way of the gospel 



21 

at the South. This is one great grievance that presses to-day 
upon the hearts of our Christian brethren in the Southern States. 
This, in a measure, explains why such men as Dr. Thornwell, of 
South Carolina, and Dr. Palmer,* of New Orleans — men whose 
genius and learning and piety would adorn any state or station — 
are willing to secede from the Union. They feel that the influ- 
ence of the Christian ministry is hindered, and their power to do 
good to both master and slave crippled, by the constant agita- 
tions of Abolitionism in our national councils, and the incessant 
turmoil excited by the unscriptural dogma that slaveholding is 
sin. They hope that under some other government they may 
have that peace for the prosecution of their Master's work, which 
the Constitution of the United States has hitherto failed to secure 
for them. Whatever I may think of secession as a remedy for 
the evils complained of, in my heart I do not blame them. My 
soul is knit to such men with the sympathy of Jonathan for Da- 
vid. Whatever be the result of this contest, the union between 
their hearts and mine, cemented by the word and Spirit of God, 
can never be dissolved. Earth and hell cannot dissolve it. 

* Since the delivery of my sermon, I have received a copy of Dr. Palmer's eloquent 
Tlianksgiving discourse, from which I make the following extract: 

" The worst foes of the hlack race are those who have intermeddled on their behalf. 
We know better than others, that every attribute of their character fits them for de- 
pendence and servitude. By nature the most affectionate and loyal of all races beneath 
the sun, they are also the most helpless ; and no calamity can befall them greater than 
the loss of that protection they enjoy under this patriarchal system. Indeed the ex- 
periment has been grandly tried of precipitating them upon freedom which th?y know 
not how to enjoy ; and the dismal results are before us in statistics that astonish the 
world. With the fairest portions of the earth in their possession, and with the advan- 
tage of a long discipline as cultiv.ators of the soil, their constitutional indolence has 
converted the most beautiful islands of the sea into a howhng waste. It is not too 
much to say that if the South should, at this moment, surrender every slave, the 
wisdom of the entire world, united in solemn council, could not solve the question of 
their disposal. Their transportation to Africa, even if it were feasible, would be but 
the most refined cruelty ; they must perish with starvation before they could have time 
to relapse into their primitive barbarism. Their residence here, in the presence of the 
vigorous Saxon race, would be but the signal for their rapid extermination before they had 
time to waste away through hstlessness, filth, and vice. Freedom would be their doom ; 
and equally from both they call upon us, their providential guardians, to be protected. 
I know this argument will be scoffed abroad as the hypocritical cover thrown oyer oiir 
own cupidity and selfishness ; but every Southern master knows its truth and feels its 
power. My servant, whether born in my house or bought with my money, stands to 
me in the relation of a child. Though providentially owing me service, which, prov- 
identially, I am bound to exact, he is, nevertheless, my brother and my friend; and I 
am to him a guardian and a father. He leans upon me for protection, for counsel, and 
for blessing ; and so long as the relation contmues, no power but the power of almighty 
God, shall come between him and me. Were there no argument but this, it binds 
upon us the providential duty of preserving the relation, that we may save him from a 
doom worse than death." 



22 

Though my lot is cast in a colder clime, yet in the outgoings of 
that warm affection to which space is nothing, I will ever say, 
" Entreat me not to leave thee, for your people shall be my peo- 
ple, and your God my Grod ;" and though we may be separated 
in body for a while by the dark gulf of political disunion, and by 
the absorbing strife for which every sound man at the North 
will soon be called upon to gird himself — the long, long rest of 
eternity, will afford abundant opportunity for the interchange 
of our mutual charities. 

II. THE PRINCIPLES OF ABOLITION HAVE BEEN PROPAGATED 

CHIEFLY BY MISREPRESENTATION AND ABUSE. 

Having no foundation in Scripture, it does not carry on its 
warfare by Scripture weapons. Its prevailing spirit is fierce and 
proud, and its language is full of wrath and bitterness. Let me 
prove this by testimony from its own lips. I quote Dr. Chan- 
ning, of Boston, whose name is a tower of strength to the Abo- 
lition cause, and whose memory is their continual boast. In a 
work published in the year 1836, I find the following words : — 

"The Abolitionists liave done wrong, I believe; nor is their wropg to be 
winked at because done fanatically or with good intentions ; for how much 
mischief may be wrought with good designs ! They have fallen into the 
coniinon error of enthusiasts, that of exaggerating their object of feeling as 
if no evil existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be 
compared with that of countenancing and upholding it. The toue of their 
newspapers, so far as I have seen them, has often been fierce, bitter, and 
abusive. They have sent forth their orators, some of them transported with 
fiery zeal, to sound the alarm against slavery through the land, to gather to- 
gether young and old, pupils from school, females hardly arrived at years of 
discretion, the ignorant, the excitable, the impetuous, and to organize these 
into associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhappily, they 
preached their doctrine to the colored people, and collected them into so- 
cieties. To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute, heart-rending de- 
scriptions of slavery were given in piercing tones of jjassion ; and slaveholders 
were held up as monsters of cruelty and crime. The Abolitionist, indeed, 
proposed to convert slaveholders ; and for this end he approached them 
with vituperation, and exhausted on them the vocabulary of abuse. And he 
has reaped as he sowed." 

Such is the testimony of Dr. Channing, given in the year 
1836. What would he have thought and said if he had lived 



23 

until the year 1860, and seen this little stream, over whose in- 
fant violence he lamented, swelling into a torrent and flooding 
the land ? 

Abolitionism is abusive in its persistent misrepresentation of 
the legal principles involved in the relation between master and 
slave. Its teachers reiterate, in a thousand exciting: forms, the 
assertion that the idea of property in man blots out his manhood, 
and degrades him to the level of a brute or a stone. " Domestic 
slavery," says Dr. Wayland, in his work on Moral Science, '' sup- 
poses, at best, that the relation between master and slave is not 
that which exists between man and man, but is a modification, 
at least, of that which exists between man and the brutes." Do 
not these Abolitionist philosophers know, that, according to the 
laws of every civilized country on earth, a man has property in 
his children, and a woman has property in her husband ? The 
statutes of the State of New York, and of every other Northern 
State, recognize and protect this property, and our courts of jus- 
tice have repeatedly assessed its value. If a man is killed on a 
railroad, his wife may bring suit, and recover damages for the 
pecuniary loss she has suffered. If one man entice away the 
daughter of another, and marry her, while she is still under age, 
the father may bring a civil suit for damages for the loss of that 
child's services, and the pecuniary compensation is the only re- 
dress the law provides.* Thus the common law of Christendom, 
and the statutes of our own State, recognize property in man. 
In what does that property con.sist ? Simply in sucJi services 
as a man or a child may jyroperly he required to render. This 
is all that the Levitical law, or any other law, means when it 
says, " Your bondmen shall be your possession, or property, and 
an inheritance for your children." The property consists, not 
in the right to treat the slave like a brute, but simply in a legal 
claim for such services as a man in that position may properly be 
required to render.f And yet Abolitionists, in the face of the 

* If the law went further, as it ought to, and punished the minister who performs 
the marriage ceremony, the ofiPence would not be so often repeated in this commu- 
nity. 

f With a manifest design to prejudice the student against the idea of property in 
man, Dr. Wayland adopts a marvellous " Definition of the right of Property.' Let 
Christian parents and teachers look at it. " The abstract nght of property is the 
right to use something in such manner as I choose. But, inasmuch as this rio-ht of use is. 



24 

Divine law, persist in denouncing the very relation between 
master and slave " as a modification, at least, of that which ex- 
ists between man and the brutes." 

This, however, is not the worst or most prevalent form which 
their abusive spirit assumes. Their mode of arguing the ques- 
tion of slaveholding, by a pretended appeal to facts, is a tissue 
of misrepresentation from beginning to end. Let me illustrate 
my meaning by a parallel case. Suppose I undertake to prove 
the wickedness of marriage, as it exists in the city of New- York. 
In this discussion suppose the Bible is excluded, or, at least, 
that it is not recognized as having exclusive jurisdiction in the 
decision of the question. My first appeal is to the statute law 
of the State. 

I show there enactments which nullify the law of God, and 
make divorce a marketable and cheap commodity, I collect 
the advertisements of your daily papers, in which lawyers offer 
to procure the legal separation of man and wife for a stipulated 
price, to say nothing, in this sacred place, of other advertise- 
ments which decency forbids me to quote. Then I turn to the 
records of our criminal courts, and find that every day some 
cruel husband beats his wife, or some unnatural parent murders 
his child, or some discontented wife or husband seeks the disso- 
lution of the marriage bond. In the next place I turn to the 
orphan asylums and hospitals, and show there the miserable 
wrecks of domestic tyranny in wives deserted and children 
maimed by drunken parents.* In the last place, I go through 

common to all men, and as one may choose to use his property in such a way as to 
deprive his neighbor of this or of some other right, the right to use as I choose is lim- 
ited by the restriction that I do not interfere with the rights of my neighbor. The 
right of property, thei'efore, when thus restricted, is the right to xise something as I 
choose, provided I do not so use it as to interfere with the rights of my neighbor." — Page 229. 
Is that so, Dr. Wayland? Has a man a right, if Ae chooses, to take his horse into the 
woods, where his neighbors will not be disturbed by his cruelty, and there torture or 
starve the poor beast? Does the master's claim to property in his servant involve a 
claim to use that servant just as he chooses, with no other restriction than the one you 
mention ? No, irir, the abstract right of property, is the right fo use some thing or person 
according fo the nature of that thing or person, and imder all the restrictions which the 
Divine law imposes, which restrictions go much further than my neighbor's rights. 
This is Christian philosophy. Your definition would come vnih better grace from a 
heathen. 

* There is in the Brooklj'u Orphan Asylum a little child who was thrown into 
the fire, and almost roasted to death, by its father. If that child had been a slave 
in Charleston, how the sad story would liave rung through the land ! But modern 
philanthropy has no tears or shrieks to spare for white children. 



25 

our streets, and into our tenement houses, and count the thou- 
sands of ragged children, who, amid ignorance and filth, are 
training for the prison and gallows. 

Summing all these facts together, I put them forth aa the 
fruits of marriage in the city of New York, and a proof that the 
relation itself is sinful. If I were a novelist, and had written a 
book to illustrate this same doctrine, I woijld call this array of 
facts a " Key." In this key I say nothing about the sweet chari- 
ties and afi'ections that flourish in ten thousand homes, not a 
word about the multitude of loving-kindnesses that characterize 
the daily life of honest people, about the instruction and disci- 
pline that are training children at ten thousand firesides for use- 
fulness here and glory hereafter ; — all this I ignore, and quote 
only the statute book, the newspapers, the records of criminal 
courts, and the miseries of the abodes of poverty. Now, what 
have I done ? I have not misstated or exaggerated a single fact. 
And yet am I not a falsifier and a slanderer of the deepest dye ? 
Is there a virtuous woman or an honest man in this city, whose 
cheeks would not burn with indignation at my one-sided and 
injurious statements ? But this is just what Abolitionism has 
done in regard to slaveholding. It has undertaken to illustrate 
its cardinal doctrine in works of fiction ; and then, to sustain the 
creation of its fancy, has attempted to underpin it with an ac- 
cumulation of facts. These facts are collected in precisely the 
way I have described. The statute books of slaveholding States 
are searched, and every wrong enactment collated, newspaper 
reports of cruelty and crime on the part of wicked masters are 
treasured up and classified, all the outrages that have been per- 
petrated " by lewd fellows of the baser sort " — of whom there are 
plenty, both North and South — are eagerly seized and recorded ; 
and this mass of vileness and filth, collected chiefly from the kennels 
and sewers of society, is put forth as a faithful exhibition of slave- 
holding. Senators in the forum, and ministers in the pulpit, dis- 
till this raw material into the more refined slander " that Southern 
society is essentially barbarous, and that slaveholding had its 
origin in hell." Legislative bodies enact and re-enact statutes 
which declare that slaveholding is such an enormous crime, that 
if a southern man, under the broad shield of the constitution, and 



26 

with the decisions of the Supreme Court of the country in his 
hand, shall come within their jurisdiction, and set up a claim to 
a fugitive slave, he shall be punished with a fine of $2,000 and 
fifteen years' imprisonment. And this method of argument has 
continued until multitudes of honest Christian people in this and 
other lands, believe that slaveholding is the sin of sins, the sum 
of all villanies. Let me illustrate this by an incident in my own 
experience. A few years since I took from the centre-table of a 
Christian family in Scotland, by whom I had been most kindly 
entertained, a book entitled " Life and Manners in America." 
On the blank leaf was an inscription, stating that the book had 
been bestowed upon one of the children of the family, as a reward 
of diligence in an institution of learning. The frontispiece 
was a picture of a man of fierce countenance beating a naked 
woman. The contents of the book were professedly com- 
piled from the testimony of Americans upon the subject of 
slavery. I dare not quote in this place the extracts which I 
made in my memorandum. It will be sufficient to say that the 
book asserts, as undoubted facts, that the banks of the Mississippi 
are studded with iron gallows for the punishment of slaves — that 
in the city of Charleston the bloody block on which masters cut 
off the hands of disobedient servants may be seen in the public 
squares, and that sins against chastity are common and unre- 
buked in professedly Christian families. 

Now in my heart I did not feel angry at the author of that 
book, nor at the school-teacher who bestowed it upon his scholar; 
for in Christian charity I gave them credit for honesty in the case. 
But standing there a stranger among the martyr memories of that 
glorious land, to which my heart had so often made its pilgrim- 
age, I did feel that you and I, and every man in America, was 
wronged by the revilers of their native land, who teach foreigners 
that hanging, and cutting off hands, and beating women, are the 
characteristics of our life and manners. 

But we need not go to foreign lands for proof that Abolition- 
ism has carried on its warfare by the language of abuse. The 
annual meeting of the American Anti- Slavery Society brings the 
evidence to our doors. We have been accustomed to laugh at 
these vernal exhibitions of fanaticism, not thinking, perhaps, that 



2Y ■ 

what was fun for us, was working death to our brethren, whose 
property and reputation we are bound to protect. The fact is, 
we have suffered a fire to be built in our midst, whose sparks 
have been scattered far and wide ; and now when the smoke of 
the conflagration comes back to blind our eyes, and the heat of 
it begins to scorch our industrial and commercial interests, it will 
not do for us to say that the utterances of that Society are the 
ravings of a fanatical and insignificant few ; for the men who 
compose it are honored in our midst with titles and offices. Its 
President is a Chief Justice of the State of New Jersey. The 
ministers who have thrown over its doings the sanction of our 
holy religion, are quoted and magnified over the land as the repre- 
sentative men of the age ; and the man who stood up in its 
deliberations in the year 1852, and exhausted the vocabulary of 
abuse upon the compromise measures, and the great statesmen 
who framed them, is now a judge in our courts and the guardian 
of our lives and property. 

It will, doubtless, be said that misrepresentation and abuse 
have not been confined, in the progress of this imhappy contest, 
to the Abolitionists of the North ; that demagogues and self- 
seeking men at the South have been violent and abusive, and 
that newspapers professedly in the interest of the South, with a 
spirit which can be characterized as little less than diabolical, 
have circulated every scandal in the most aggravated and irri- 
tating form. But suppose all this to be granted— what then ? 
Can Christian men justify or palliate the wrath and evil-speak- 
ing which are at their own doors, by pointing to the retaliation 
which it has provoked from their neighbors ? If I were preach- 
ing to-day to a Southern audience, it would be my duty, and I 
trust God would give me grace to perform it, to tell them of 
their sins in this matter. And especially would it be my privi- 
lege, as a minister of the gospel of peace— a privilege from which 
no^ false views of manhood should prevent me— to exhort and 
beseech them as brethren. I would assure them, that there 
are multitudes here who still cherish the memory of the battle- 
fields and council-chambers where our fathers cemented this 
Union of States, and who will stand by the compact of that 
constitution to the utmost extremity. I would tell the thou- 



28 

sands of Christian ministers, among whom are some of the 
brightest ornaments of the American j)ulpit, and the tens of 
thousands of Christian men and women, toward whom, while 
the lov^e of Christ burns in me, my heart never can grow cold, 
that if they will only be patient, and hope to the end, all wrongs 
may yet be righted. Therefore, I would beseech them not to 
put a great gulf between us, and cut off the very opportunity 
for reconciliation upon an honorable basis, by a revolution whose 
end no human eye can see. But, then, I am not preaching at 
the South. I stand here, at one of the main fountain-heads of 
the abuse we have complained of 

I stand here to rebuke this sin, and exhort the guilty par- 
ties to repent and forsake it. It is magnanimous and Christ- 
like for those from whom the first provocation came, to make 
the first concessions. 

The legislative enactments which are in open and acknowl- 
edged violation of the constitution, and whose chief design is 
to put a stigma upon slaveholding, must and will be repealed. 
Truth and justice will ultimately prevail ; and God's blessing, 
and the blessings of generations yet unborn, will rest upon that 
party, in this unhappy contest, who first stand forth to utter the 
language of conciliation, and proffer the olive-branch of peace. 
The great fear is, that the reaction will come too late ; hut 
sooner or Icuter it will come. Abolitionism ought to, and one 
day will, change the mode of its warfare, and adopt a new 
vocabulary. I believe in the liberty of the press, and in free- 
dom of speech ; but I do not believe that any man has the 
right, before God, or in the eye of civilized law, to speak and 
publish what he pleases, without regard to the consequences. 
With the conscientious convictions of our fellow-citizens, neither 
we, nor the law, have any right to interfere ; but the law ought 
to protect all men from the utterance of libellous words, whose 
only effect is to create division and strife. 

I trust and pray, and call upon you to unite with me in the 
supplication, that God would give Abolitionists repentance and 
a better mind, so that in time to come they may, at least, prop- 
agate their principles in decent and respectful language. 



29 



in, — ABOLITIONISM LEADS, IN MULTITUDES OF CASES, AND BY A 
LOGICAL PROCESS, TO UTTER INFIDELITY. 

On this point I would not, and will not, be misunderstood. 
I do not say that Abolitionism is infidelity. I speak only of the 
tendencies of the system, as indicated in its avowed principles 
and demonstrated in its practical fruits. 

One of its avowed principles is, that it does not try slavery 
by the Bible ; but as one of its leading advocates has recently 
declared, it tries the Bible by the principles of freedom. It in- 
sists that the word of God must be made to support certain 
human opinions, or forfeit all claims upon our faith. That I 
may not be suspected of exaggeration on this point, let m^ 
quote, from the recent work of Mr. Barnes, a passage which, 
may well arrest the attention of all thinking men : — 

'• There are great principles ia our nature, as God has made us, -which can 
never be set aside by any authority of a professed revelation. If a book 
claiming to be a revelation from God, by any fair interpretation, defended 
slavery, or placed it on the same basis as the relation of husband and wife, 
parent and child, guardian and ward, such a book would not, and could not, 
be received by the mass of mankind as a Divine revelation." — Barnes on 
Slavery and the Churchy p. 193. 

This assumption, that men are capable of judging beforehand 
what is to be expected in a Divine revelation, is the cockatrice's 
622:, from which, in all ages, heresies have been hatched. This 
is the spider's web which men have spun out of their own brains, 
and clinging to which, they have attempted to swing over the 
yawning abyss of infidelity.* Alas, how many have fallen in, 

* It is not denied that man, as originally constituted by his Creator, was capable 
of discerning for himself between good and evil. Even since the fall, the law of God is 
still written in the heart, (Rom. ii. 3), and would be a sufficient guide, if there were 
nothing to blot and pervert it. But what says the Apostle in regard to the whole 
world who have not the Scriptures? " They have become vain in their imaginations, 
and their foolish heart is darkened," &c., (Kom. i. 21-25). What are the principles by 
which, according to Mr.Barnes's theory, these men are to try "the authority of a sup- 
posed revelation ? " Their principles teach them that human sacrifices, and all kinds 
of uncleanness, are right. Must a supposed revelation conform to these principles in 
order to secure their acceptance of it ? 

Mr. Barnes well knows, that in Christian lands the ablest and best men differ as to 
what are the principles of our nature. Who will assume to be the oracle on this sub- 
ject ? The Abolitionist will declare that hostiliUi to slavery on moral grounds, is one 
of these principles. But the great mass of mankind, including just as wise and good 
men as he is, do not admit any such principle, and are not wilhng that he should be 



30 

and been dashed to pieces ! When a man sets up the great 
principles of our nature (by which he always means his own pre- 
conceived opinions) as the supreme tribunal before which even 
the law of God must be tried — ^when a man says " the Bible 
must teach Abolitionism, or I will not receive it," he has already 
cut loose from the sheet-anchor of faith. True belief says, 
" Speak, Lord, thy servant waits to hear/' Abolitionism says, 
" Speak, Lord, but speak in accordance with the principles of 
human nature, or thy word cannot be received by the great 
mass of mankind as a Divine revelation." The fruit of such 
principles is just what we might expect. Wherever the seed 
of Abolitionism has been sown broadcast, a plentiful crop of 
infidelity has sprung up. In the communities where anti-sla- 
very excitement has been most prevalent, the power of the gos- 
pel has invariably declined ; and when the tide of flmaticism 
begins to subside, the wrecks of church order and of Christian 
character have been scattered on the shore. I mean no disre- 
spect to New England — to the good men who there stand by 
the ancient landmarks, and contend earnestly for the truth — 
nor to the illustrious dead whose praise is in all the churches ; 
but who does not know that the States in which Abolitionism 
has achieved its most signal triumphs, are at the same time the 
great strongholds of infidelity in the land ? I have often thought 
that if some of those old pilgrim fathers could come back, in the 
spirit and power of Elias, to attend a grand celebration at Ply- 
mouth rock, they might well preach on this text : — "If ye were 
Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham." The 
effect of Abolitionism upon individuals, is no less striking and 
mournful than its influence upon communities. It is a remark- 
able and instructive fact, and one at which Christian men would 
do well to pause and consider, that, in this country, all the 
prominent leaders of Abolitionism, outside of the ministry, have 

dictator in morals. Besides, this whole appeal to natural principles presents a false 
and deceitful issue. The Bible is admitted to be a Divine revelation. The simple 
question is, what does the Bible teach ? Mr. Barnes, while professedly expounding 
the Scriptures, finds certaui texts, which, by every fair construction of words, seem to 
put God's sanction on slaveholding. From these texts he desires to extort a different 
meaning ; to justify which procedure, he appeals to the principles of our (i. e., his) 
nature. 



31 

become avowed infidels ; and tliat all our notorious Abolition 
preachers have renounced the great doctrines of grace as they 
are taught in the standards of the reformed churches — ^have re- 
sorted to the most violent processes of interpretation to avoid 
the obvious meaning of plain Scriptural texts, and ascribed to 
the Apostles of Christ principles from which piety and moral 
courage instinctively revolt. They make that to be sin which 
the Bible does not declare to be sin. They denounce, in lan- 
guage such as the sternest prophets of the Law never employed, 
a relation which Jesus and his Apostles recognized and regu- 
lated. They seek to institute terms and tests of Christian com- 
munion utterly at variance with the organic law of the Church, 
as founded by its Divine Head ; and, attempting to justify this 
usurpation of Divine prerogatives by an appeal from God's law 
to the dictates of fallen human nature, they would set iip a 
spiritual tyranny more odious and insufferable, because more ar- 
bitrary and uncertain in its decisions, than Popery itself. And 
as the tree is, so have its fruits been. It is not a theory, but 
a demonstrated fact, that Abolitionism leads to infidelity. 
Such men as Garrison, and Giddings, and Gerrit Smith, have 
yielded to the current of their own principles, and thrown the 
Bible overboard. Thousands of humbler men who listen to 
Abolition preachers, will go and do likewise. And whether it 
be the restraints of ofiicial position, or the preventing grace of 
God, that enables such preachers to row up the stream and re- 
gard the authority of Scripture in other matters, their influence 
upon this one subject is all the more pernicious, because they 
prophesy in the name of Christ. In this sincere and plain ut- 
terance of my deep convictions, I am only discharging my con- 
science toward the flock over which I am set. When the shep- 
herd seeth the wolf coming, he is bound to give warning. 

IV.— ABOLITIONISM IS THE CHIEF CAUSE OF THE STRIFE THAT 
AGITATES AND THE DANGER THAT THREATENS OUR COUNTRY. 

Here, as upon the preceding point, I will not be misunder- 
stood. I am not here as the advocate or opponent of any politi- 
cal party : and it is no more than simple justice for me to say 



32 

plainly, that I do not consider Eepublican and Abolitionist as 
necessarily synonymous terms. There are tens of thousands of 
Christian men who voted with the successful jmrty in the late 
election, who do not sympathize with the principles or aims of 
Abolitionism. Among these are some beloved members of my 
own flock, who will not hesitate a moment to put the seal of 
their approbation upon the doctrine of this discourse. And 
what is still more to the point, there seems to be sufficient evi- 
dence that the man who has just been chosen to be the head of 
this nation, is among the more conservative and "Bible-loving 
men of his party. We have no fears that if the new adminis- 
tration could be quietly inaugurated, it would or could Aboli- 
tionize the government. There are honest people enough in the 
Northern States to prevent such a result. But, then, while this 
is admitted, as a simple matter of truth and justice, it cannot 
be denied, on the other hand, that Abolitionism did enter with 
all its characteristic bitterness into the recent contest ; that the 
result never could have been accomplished without its assistance, 
and that it now appropriates the victory in words of ridicule 
and scorn that sting like a serpent. Let me give you, as a 
single specimen of the spirit in which Abolitionism has carried 
on its political warfare, an extract from a journal which claims 
to have a larger circulation than any other religious paper in the 
land. I quote from the New York Indejpendent, of September, 
1856 :— 

" The people will not levy war nor inaugurate a revolution, even to relieve 
Kansas, until they have first tried what they can do by voting. If this peace- 
ful remedy should fail to be applied this year, then the people will count the 
cost wisely, and decide for themselves boldly and firmly, which is the better 
way. to rise in arms and throw ofl:' a government worse than that of old King 
George, or endure it another four years, and then vote again." 

Such is the spirit — such the love to the constitution and 
Union of these States, with which this religious element has 
entered into and seeks to control our party politics. 

This passage is not quoted as an extraordinary one for the 
columns of the Independent, for that paper is accustomed to 
breathe out threatenings and slaughter. It is but a fair illus- 
tration of the fierce spirit which this so-called religious journal 



33 

infuses into the families wliere it is a weekly visitor, and of the 
opinions concerning the United States government it seeks to 
disseminate. The passage quoted has a special significance , 
however, in view of its date, Septemher, 1856. The opinions of 
the Editors appear to have undergone a wonderful change in four 
years ; and forgetting that they have been the violent advocates, 
not only of disunion but of civil war, they have become loud in 
rebuking secession at the South. The genius of the constitution 
might well say to such defenders, " What hast thou to do to 
declare my statutes, or that thou shouldst take my covenant in 
thy mouth ? " 

But we deceive ourselves, if we suppose that our present 
dangers are of a birth so recent as 1856. As the questions now 
before the country rise in their magnitude above all party inter- 
ests, and ought at once to blot out all party lines, so their 
origin is found far back of all party organizations as they now 
exist. 

An article published twenty years ago in the Princeton 
Revieiu, contains this remarkable language : — 

"The opinion tliat slaveholding is itself a crime must operate to produce 
the disunion of the States and the division of all ecclesiastical societies in this 
country. Just so far as this opinion operates, it will lead those who entertain 
it to submit to any sacrifices to carry it out and give it effect. AYc shall be- 
come two nations in feeling, which must soon render us two nations in fact." 

These words are wonderfully prophetic, and they who road 
the signs of the times must see that the period of their fulfil- 
ment draws near. In regard to ecclesiastical societies, the 
division foretold is already in a great measure accomplished. 
Three of our great religious denominations have been rent in. 
twain by the simple question, " Is slaveholding a sin ? " 

It yet remains to be seen whether the American Tract 
Society, and the American Board of Foreign Missions, will be 
revolutionized and dismembered by a contest which, we are 
told, is to be annually renewed. In regard to the Union of 
these States, there is too much reason to fear that " we are 
already two nations in feeling," and to anticipate the near ap- 
proach of the calamity which shall blot out some of the stars in 
our ensign, and make us two nations in fact. 
3 



34 

And what has brought us to the verge of this precipice ? 
What evil spirit has put enmity between the seed of those 
whom God, by his blessing on the wisdom and sacrifices of our 
fathers, made one flesh ? What has created and fostered this 
alienation between the North and the South, until disunion — 
that used to be whispered in corners — stalks forth in open day- 
light, and is recognized as a necessity by multitudes of thinking 
men in all sections of the land ? I believe before God, that 
this division of feeling, of which actual disunion will be but the 
expression and embodiment, was begotten of Abolitionism, has 
been rocked in its cradle and fed with its poisoned milk, and 
instructed by its ministers, until, girded with a strength which 
comes not altogether of this upper world, it is taking hold upon 
the pillars of the constitution, and shattering the noble fabric 
to its base. 

There was a time when the constitutional questions be- 
tween the North and South — the conflict of material interests 
growing out of their difi'erences in soil and production — were 
discussed in the spirit of statesmanship and Christian cour- 
tesy. Then such men as Daniel Webster on the one side, and 
Calhoun on the other, stood up face to face, and defended the 
rights of their respective constituency, in words which will be 
quoted as long as the English tongue shall endure, as a model 
of eloquence and a pattern of manly debate. But Aboli- 
tionism began to creep in. It came first as a purely moral 
question. But very soon its doctrines were embraced by a 
sufiicient number to hold the balance of power between con- 
tending parties in many districts and States, Aspirants for 
the Presidency seized upon it as a weapon for gratifying their 
ambition or avenging their disappointments. Under the 
shadow of their patronage, sincere Abolitionists became more 
bold and abusive in advocating their principles. The unlaw- 
ful and wicked business of enticing slaves from their masters 
was pushed forward with increasing zeal. Men v/ho, in the 
better days of the republic, could not have obtained the smallest 
ofiice, were elected to Congress upon this single issue ; and 
ministers of the gospel descended from the pulpit to mingle 
religious animosity with the boiling caldron of political strife. 



35 

Nor was this process confined to one side in the contest. Abuse 
always provokes recrimination. So long as human nature is 
passionate, hard words will be responded to by harder blows. 
And now behold the result ! In the halls where Webster and 
Calhoun, Adams and McDuffie, rendered the very name of 
American statesmanahip illustrious, and revived the memory 
of classic eloquence, we have heard the outpouring of both 
Northern and Southern violence from men who must be name- 
less in this sacred place ; and in the land where such slave- 
holders as Washington and Madison united with Hamilton and 
Hancock in cementing the Union, which they fondly hoped 
would be perpetual, commerce and manufactures, and all our 
great industrial and governmental interests, are trembling on 
the verge of dissolution. And as Abolitionism is the great 
mischief-maker between the North and South, so it is the great 
stumbling-block in the way of a peaceful settlement of our dif- 
ficulties. Its voice is still for war. The spirit of conciliation 
and compromise it utterly abhors ; and, mingling a horrid 
mirth with its madness, puts into the hands of the advocates 
of secession the very fans with which to blow the embers of 
strife into a flame. One man threw a torch into the great 
temple of the Ephesians, and kindled a conflagration which a 
hundred thousand brave men could not extinguish. One man 
fiddled and sang, and made his courtiers laugh amid the burn- 
ing of Eome. And so, the Abolition preacher " feels good " 
and overflows with merriment, when he sees our merchants and 
laboring men running after their chests and the bread of their 
families, " as if all creation was after them," and snuff's on the 
Southern breeze the scent of servile and civil war. Oh, shame 
—shame that it should come to this, and the name of our holy 
religion be so blasphemed ! Let us hope, in Christian charity, 
that such men do not comprehend the danger that stares them 
in the face. Indeed, who of us does fully comprehend it .? In 
the eloquent words of Daniel Webster, " While the Union 
lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out 
before us— for us and for our children. Beyond that I seek 
not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, 
that curtain may not rise." I repeat the noble sentiment ; 



36 

God grant that in my clay the curtain may not rise ! Let the 
night of the grave envelope these eyes in its peaceful sleep, ere 
their balls are seared with the vision of dissolution and civil 
war. He must be blind who does not perceive that such a 
■vision is just ready to burst upon us. 

A kind and wonderful Providence has so tempered the body 
of these States together, so bound and interlaced them with 
commercial and social ties, to say nothing of legal obligations, 
that BO member can be severed, and especially no contest can 
be waged among the members, without a quivering and anguish 
in every nerve, and a stagnation in the vital currents of all. 
Let one star be blotted out from our ensign, and the moral 
gravitation which holds all in their orbits will be paralyzed, if 
not utterly destroyed. The living example of successful seces- 
sion for one cause, will suggest the same course for another ; 
and unless God gives our public men a wisdom and forbearance 
of which the past few years have afforded too little evidence, 
the dissolution of this Union will be the signal for the disin- 
tegration of its elements. In such a chaos, let us not flatter 
ourselves that we shall be in entire peace and safety. The con- 
test, on whose perilous edge we seem to stand, cannot be merely 
sectional — all the North on the one side, and all the South on 
the other. It is a conflict that will run the ploughshare of di- 
vision through every State and neighborhood in the land. Abo- 
lition orators may talk about what '' we of the North " will do, 
and will nofc do, as though all the people had bowed down to 
worship the image they had set up ; but other men besides 
them will claim the right to speak — other interests will need to 
be conserved besides the cause upon which they arrogantly 
assume that victory perches and the smile of Heaven rests, 
" Let not him who putteth on his armor boast as he that put- 
teth it off.'' 

When the thousands of working-men whose subsistence de- 
pends upon our trade with the South, many of whom have been 
deluded by Abolition demagogues, shall clamor in our streets 
for bread, free labor may present some problems which political 
economy has not solved. And when the commerce of this cos- 
mopolitan city is paralyzed, and all her benevolent and Indus- 



37 

trial institutions are withering in the lieat of this unnatural 
contest, it may become a question— nay, is it not already whis- 
pered in your counting-houses— whether this great metropolis 
can be separated from the people with whom her interests and 
her heart is bound up, and continue to be controlled by a legis- 
lative policy against which she is continually protesting ; or 
whether, foUowhig the great lights of history, she will, at all 
hazards, set up for herself, and, unbolting the gateway of her 
mao-nificent harbor, invite the free trade of the world to pour 
its "riches into her bosom. Such arc a few of the problems 
which bring the question of a dissolution of the Union home to 
us. If we^were sure of a peaceful solution, at whatever pecu- 
niary or social sacrifice, we would not feel so deeply nor speak 
so earnestly. But who knows that it will be peaceful ? Where 
is the surgeon who can sever even one member from this body 
politic without the shedding of blood ? Where is the statesman 
or political economist who will undertake to control the parties, 
or direct the industrial interests of any one State, amid the con- 
fusion and alarm of dissolution ? Let us not deceive ourselves. 
The chasm before us is a yawning abyss, into whose depths no 
eye but God's can penetrate. Other men may cry, " Who's 
afraid ?" and whistle to keep their courage up ; but I confess 
my fears. Through the curtain that is about to rise, I see 
shadows at which the horror of a great darkness settles down 
upon my spirit, and the hair of my flesh stands up. Oh, my 
country ! I have loved thee with an affection passing the love 
of woman ! The glories of thy history, mingled with the life- 
blood of my childhood ; thy prosperity has been the pride and 
boast of my riper years ; and, mingling in my heart the love 
of country with the love of Christ, I have cherished the hope 
that thy brightness would never be diminished until it blended 
with the glories of the millennial day ; that thy consummation 
would be like the setting of the morning star, 

" Whicli goes uot down 
Behind the darkened west, nor hides obscured 
Among tlie tempests of the slcy, but melts away 
Into the light of heaven." 
And must this precious hope be dispelled ? Must this light go 



38 

out, and the brightest prospect the world ever beheld disappear 
amid confused noise, and garments rolled in blood ? Must the 
interest of thirty millions of white men be sacrificed, and the 
sun of civilization be turned back upon the dial of the world's 
history, by a fanaticism which all experience proves to be the 
black man's bitterest enemy ? Let us appeal to the God of 
peace, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, to dispel the 
fearful vision, to infuse His loving Spirit into our national coun- 
cils, to give our public men the meekness of wisdom, and to bind 
the hearts of all the people once more in bonds of brotherly 
kindness. ';• 

But, if we would have these supplications answered, let us 
prove our faith by our works ; take the beam out of our own 
eye, and obey the twofold precept of the text : " These things 
teach and exhort ; and if any man teach otherwise, from such 
withdraw thyself" 



THE END. 



-^^ 



